Rescue me from my PharmD!

Started by fullofregrets
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fullofregrets

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Hello All (sorry for the long post),
I am new to this forum and I am in desperate need of advice from my fellow pharmacists. Im overwhelmed and burned out. I have been in the game for six years now and I am starting to really regret becoming a pharmacists in the first place. My entire professional career has been in retail. I have jumped from one company to the next thinking the grass would be greener on the other side but of course this was a very immature and naive move. With me its the same old song and dance that you hear from many disgruntled retail pharmacists: tired of long working hours, lack of tech help, no breaks, and the customers are so very mean! I know retail is not for me. I know that I need to make an exit. But my question is where? As far as money is concerned I am okay with decreasing my salary. I can definitely live off of less. I have applied for different hospital jobs in the past but of course my application was probably tossed in the trash. I am going to apply for a residency for the upcoming year. My goal is to go into academia. But in the back of mind Im scared that I wont even get into a residency program b/c Im not a new grad. I was also thinking about going back to school to become a science teacher. I know crazy right. But Im so unhappy. Ive tried to make peace with my job but I just cant. Im stressed and depressed. Over the past six years I have gained so much weight and lost so much of myself b/c Im drained. Has anybody else experience this? Has anyone escaped from retail and completed a residency? Has anybody on this forum transitioned out of pharmacy and had a successful career in a different field? I need some words of encouragement here!
 
I don't want to sound like a hater but I have no idea why so many pharmacists waste their education and end up working retail.
 
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well... I guess the pot o gold at the end of the rainbow was a mirage leading to misery.
 
Its Z said:
well... I guess the pot o gold at the end of the rainbow was a mirage leading to misery.
Click to expand...

Yes, for sure. Although for me I knew that there was no rainbow from the beginning. Money was never really a big incentive for me. I think I was my worst enemy on this one. I went to pharmacy school for free. I had a full ride and no loans upon graduation. While in school I worked in retail and knew I didnt like it. I was young, I thought that as a pharmacist things would be different, better. My professors encouraged me to do a residency but I didnt listen. I was tired of being in school and another year (at that time) seemed liked a big burden. Before graduation I was courted by all these companies. It was so easy to get a job. And after all when you are 23 and ready for some independence these things sounds nice. But hindsight is always 20/20. The difference in pay between retail vs any of area in pharmacy to me is pretty negligible. I just wish more hospital/nuclear pharmacies/home infusion/ any thing but retail did more recruitment.

But I still feel betrayed by my profession. Nobody said anything about it being this bad. Why didnt some one speak up! Why dont more people speak up and out!
 
I'm in the same boat as you, except I've only been doing retail for a few months and I can't stand it. I've always enjoyed clinical pharmacy and loved my internal medicine rotations. My preceptors tried to convince me to do a residency, but I was just tired of school (been in college for 8 years). I'm currently looking for a hospital job, home infusion, or LTC. If I can't get one, I'm gonna apply for a residency. The hard part about your situation is that since you've been in retail for 6 years, it's makes you less appealing to residencies and hospitals because as we all know, we don't use much clinical knowledge in retail, so what we don't use, we lose. 🙁

Try looking for an independent pharmacy, I heard it's much better than the typical chain pharmacies. Keep trying and good luck!
 
Hospital pharmacy is barely any more fulfilling. Don't let people lie to you and tell you its some wonderful green pasture.

You are still run ragged. I worked harder in a hospital than I EVER worked in a retail pharmacy. And it wasn't even close. There were some days on weekends where I would find myself with a census of 160, a room full of IVs to check....God knows if they are even right being as though I can't even directly supervise the techs, outpatient prescriptions for employees...3 of them waiting outside for their crap...glaring at you through the window as you walk by, an order I had to transcribe and send off to Cardinal, checking all of the meds I needed to send down off of the orders I'd been putting in...dealing with the guaranteed 2 or 3 Pyxis failures you'd get a shift...the 1 or 2 times you'd have to leave the pharmacy to deal with a controlled substance discrepancy because the ******ed nurses can't count...having to answer the phone once every 2 minutes because the nurses are too lazy to look up IV compatibilities themselves...doing a brand new Vanc/Gent dose without a diagnosis because the attending ordered it "RPh to dose" without really describing WTF is going on with the patient, right before leavign the premises to play golf, naturally...and even more crap that's not coming to mind at the time...all by myself...not another pharmacist on site. About a second away from pulling my hair out.

I'll take 500 scripts a day by myself, no technician, over that madness. I did some retail per diem a few months ago. That **** seemed like a damned vacation compared to the work load they gave me in hospital. You think dealing with the public is bad? Try dealing with some asshat specialist that is incompetent at the use of rational drug therapy. They don't give a **** that the trough of that Vanc is ****ing 3. They graduated from medical school in 1947 and think that because they are board certified ID specialists, they shouldn't be questioned by some useless pill jockey. The general public has an excuse for why they are dumb...they don't know WTF they are talking about. I can handle that. If a blind guy smacks me with his cane...sure its annoying, but I understand. The day you spend 20 minutes arguing with a jagoff that thinks they know everything on the planet by hiding behind their credentials in the face of limitless evidence to the contrary is the day you realize that the general public isn't THAT bad.

The people you work with tend to be the type of person that thinks they are the smartest pharmacist on the planet, too. Hospital pharmacy attracts the type of narcisstic douchebag that secretly wishes everyone addressed them as "Dr." instead of on a first name basis. Get 8 of them on the same staff and incredibly annoying politics get in the way. They take criticisms of their ideas very personally. As if you are insulting them instead of their stupid ass idea. At this point, and from what I understand, every hospital has one of these, the other pharmacist starts tracking your mistakes. They will take the time to find them. I mean, come in early...look at MAR corrections. Then turn them into the director and claim that you are prone to mistakes. You'll have that to look forward to.

There is very little patient interaction. You might get the occasional Coumadin song-and-dance, but usually they want you to hurry the hell up so they can be discharged. They tend to ignore you. One day I went in and said, "Hi, my name is Coumadin, I'm going to talk to you about Mike." Dude didn't even notice or care. If I wanted to mid-spiel, I could probably start talking about how Coumadin prevents alien abduction and they probably wouldn't notice.

For each annoying person in the general public you deal with at Wags, there are 5 know-it-all nurses you will have to deal with in the hospital. You get a lunch break, which is cool. But at most places, that just means that you have stay an extra half hour. You can pretend like your job is more prestigious, but it isn't really. At least in retail you are the boss of all around you. In hospital, you are a little bitch that gets ignored dozens of times a day. You are, by far, the lowest man on the totem pole. The physicians and nurses boss pharmacy around like a runt stepbrother. They represent the purse and the biggest source of essential manpower. If either of them wants something the pharmacy doesn't, or vice-versa...they get their way, not you. The 8 or so pharmacists hanging out in the basement don't even show up on the radar of the CEOs. At least with retail pharmacy, you are the show. You are why they are there. In hospitals, you are treated more like an annoyance that they employ because the government makes them.

There are some good things about hospital. That whole "you get to use what you learn" thing. Though doing kinetics and staring at antimicrobial sensitivities gets pretty old, fast. The variety is what makes it interesting. Which is why I have no idea how specialists can stand their jobs. I'd get bored from the monotony. The occasions when physicians run out of ideas and begrudgingly have to admit that they need your help is incredibly amusing. They will call you from a phone in the corner of the floor so the nurses don't know they asked you for help. You can hear the pain in their voices and egos over the phone. No lie, one time a cardiologist asked me about drugs from hiccups...expecting it to be some tough question i'd have to look up...but being as though I'm, I dunno... a drug expert...without batting an eyebrow, I say Thorazine 25 q8. I swear to God...the physician on the other end of the phone lets off this nervous laugh and says, "Ah, yes, very good. I was testing you." WTF is that? Hospitals are like a microkingdom of bizarre little fiefdoms. If you can flourish in that environment, more power to you.

Of course, I'm pretty sure I worked in the most ass backwards hospital on the planet, so maybe my experiences aren't the standard.

Now if you stay with it and get a gig like Z where you go around telling people how to work efficiently as a consultant, I'd imagine that it becomes a pretty cool job.

...

But, hey, if you hate retail that much, maybe something new will help you. There is always mail order. Or LTC. Or nuclear.
 
Its Z said:
ehh..I've been saying retail sux for years..
Click to expand...

I completely agree but I must say I really enjoyed my independent pharmacy rotation. I would like to end up in a position like Dr. M in a few years! I do enjoy inpatient pharmacy and plan on applying for a residency but down the road I will always have my eye open for an opportunity to start or buy out an independent.
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
No lie, one time a cardiologist asked me about drugs from hiccups...expecting it to be some tough question i'd have to look up...but being as though I'm, I dunno... a drug expert...without batting an eyebrow, I say Thorazine 25 q8. I swear to God...the physician on the other end of the phone lets off this nervous laugh and says, "Ah, yes, very good. I was testing you." WTF is that?
Click to expand...

That's absolutely ridiculous. Who the hell has an inferiority complex like that?
 
Its Z said:
I don't want to sound like a hater but I have no idea why so many pharmacists waste their education and end up working retail.
Click to expand...

Because we get paid an ***** load of money.

Just like WVU said....Its not like hospital pharmacy is that much better. At least I do not have to worry about being laid off or getting my hours cut if the cenus drops.
 
OH my GOD!! Fullofregret. Me and you have the same life. The only difference is I stuck with CVS, everything else is my life verbatum. I'm in the same boat as you. My application is all over NY and NJ
 
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Retail/Commmunity accounts for about 2/3 of all pharmacist jobs.
No job is perfect. There are good and bad things about each position.
 
fullofregrets said:
Hello All (sorry for the long post),
I am new to this forum and I am in desperate need of advice from my fellow pharmacists. Im overwhelmed and burned out. I have been in the game for six years now and I am starting to really regret becoming a pharmacists in the first place. My entire professional career has been in retail. I have jumped from one company to the next thinking the grass would be greener on the other side but of course this was a very immature and naive move. With me its the same old song and dance that you hear from many disgruntled retail pharmacists: tired of long working hours, lack of tech help, no breaks, and the customers are so very mean! I know retail is not for me. I know that I need to make an exit. But my question is where? As far as money is concerned I am okay with decreasing my salary. I can definitely live off of less. I have applied for different hospital jobs in the past but of course my application was probably tossed in the trash. I am going to apply for a residency for the upcoming year. My goal is to go into academia. But in the back of mind Im scared that I wont even get into a residency program b/c Im not a new grad. I was also thinking about going back to school to become a science teacher. I know crazy right. But Im so unhappy. Ive tried to make peace with my job but I just cant. Im stressed and depressed. Over the past six years I have gained so much weight and lost so much of myself b/c Im drained. Has anybody else experience this? Has anyone escaped from retail and completed a residency? Has anybody on this forum transitioned out of pharmacy and had a successful career in a different field? I need some words of encouragement here!
Click to expand...

Which companies have you jumped from? You found them all to basically be equally the same? As in retail is retail?
 
genesis09 said:
Retail/Commmunity accounts for about 2/3 of all pharmacist jobs.
No job is perfect. There are good and bad things about each position.
Click to expand...

Are you advising that one should look at the positives of retail/community pharmacy and look for solutions to problems within that realm of work or ways to make work flow more smoothly/efficiently as opposed to searching for a job in another field of pharmacy just yet?

Personally, I'm ok with where I'm at now...for the time being, but I do wonder at times what jobs in other sectors of pharmacy could be a better fit for me.

I agree that there are good and bad things about each position. A new job a person decides to accept could be worse or better than their previous position, but you never really know which of the two it is until you're actually working the new job. Change is a risk...for better or for worse.
 
MountainPharmD said:
Because we get paid an ***** load of money.
Click to expand...

:meanie: of course you do..


Just like WVU said....Its not like hospital pharmacy is that much better. At least I do not have to worry about being laid off or getting my hours cut if the cenus drops.
Click to expand...


Famous last words of Wag's floater who can't get 40 hours per week.

The reality is not all hospitals flex their staff..tho HCA is notorious for it... even then, the techs are the one who get sent home not the pharmacist. I've known 1 non-HCA facility who flexed staff...but the pharmacists actually only wanted to work 32 hours.
 
I just want to point out that the money difference between retail and hospital is not that much. At least in my case it wasn't. Retail might have made a lot more a few years ago due to bonuses. You can always pick up a shift or two at retail to make up that difference, which a lot of hospital pharmacists at my hospital do.

To OP, do you have preceptors that you still keep in touch with? They might be able to help you find a more suitable job. I find that they are the best sources of information. Instead of just applying online for the position, why don't you contact the director yourself. Some jobs might never get posted and sometimes when you call them, they will remember you once something comes up. Anybody can apply online, only a few that actually call and show up at the pharmacy to find out what is available. If you were in a hiring position, who would you hire? Some application online or someone that you actually spoke with? Make yourself stand out.

As far as residencies go, make sure you really research it. I know 3 residents that couldn't find a job and ended up having to work retail after a year of residency. I'm not saying that it will happen to everyone or that it is the norm, but you don't want to invest a year and then end up in the same position. But if academia is what you want to do and with so many new pharmacy schools opening up, you might not have a problem at all.
 
The reality is most pharmacist jobs suck aside from the pay. Retail, hospital, LTC hell (if you enjoy bureaucratic bull****, try LTC)...all ****ty in their own way.

Unless you find a spot in the 0.001% that Z occupies, your job will make you a hollow shell of a living being. Hey, that's why we get paid the big bucks.:annoyed:
 
Be thankful you have a job to complain about.

I think WVU said it best a while ago, bottom line is "everyone has to work, and pharmacy ain't bad".

If your stuck doing retail and hate it after pharmacy school, that's your own fault.
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
Hospital pharmacy is barely any more fulfilling. Don't let people lie to you and tell you its some wonderful green pasture.

You are still run ragged. I worked harder in a hospital than I EVER worked in a retail pharmacy. And it wasn't even close. There were some days on weekends where I would find myself with a census of 160, a room full of IVs to check....God knows if they are even right being as though I can't even directly supervise the techs, outpatient prescriptions for employees...3 of them waiting outside for their crap...glaring at you through the window as you walk by, an order I had to transcribe and send off to Cardinal, checking all of the meds I needed to send down off of the orders I'd been putting in...dealing with the guaranteed 2 or 3 Pyxis failures you'd get a shift...the 1 or 2 times you'd have to leave the pharmacy to deal with a controlled substance discrepancy because the ******ed nurses can't count...having to answer the phone once every 2 minutes because the nurses are too lazy to look up IV compatibilities themselves...doing a brand new Vanc/Gent dose without a diagnosis because the attending ordered it "RPh to dose" without really describing WTF is going on with the patient, right before leavign the premises to play golf, naturally...and even more crap that's not coming to mind at the time...all by myself...not another pharmacist on site. About a second away from pulling my hair out.

I'll take 500 scripts a day by myself, no technician, over that madness. I did some retail per diem a few months ago. That **** seemed like a damned vacation compared to the work load they gave me in hospital. You think dealing with the public is bad? Try dealing with some asshat specialist that is incompetent at the use of rational drug therapy. They don't give a **** that the trough of that Vanc is ****ing 3. They graduated from medical school in 1947 and think that because they are board certified ID specialists, they shouldn't be questioned by some useless pill jockey. The general public has an excuse for why they are dumb...they don't know WTF they are talking about. I can handle that. If a blind guy smacks me with his cane...sure its annoying, but I understand. The day you spend 20 minutes arguing with a jagoff that thinks they know everything on the planet by hiding behind their credentials in the face of limitless evidence to the contrary is the day you realize that the general public isn't THAT bad.

The people you work with tend to be the type of person that thinks they are the smartest pharmacist on the planet, too. Hospital pharmacy attracts the type of narcisstic douchebag that secretly wishes everyone addressed them as "Dr." instead of on a first name basis. Get 8 of them on the same staff and incredibly annoying politics get in the way. They take criticisms of their ideas very personally. As if you are insulting them instead of their stupid ass idea. At this point, and from what I understand, every hospital has one of these, the other pharmacist starts tracking your mistakes. They will take the time to find them. I mean, come in early...look at MAR corrections. Then turn them into the director and claim that you are prone to mistakes. You'll have that to look forward to.

There is very little patient interaction. You might get the occasional Coumadin song-and-dance, but usually they want you to hurry the hell up so they can be discharged. They tend to ignore you. One day I went in and said, "Hi, my name is Coumadin, I'm going to talk to you about Mike." Dude didn't even notice or care. If I wanted to mid-spiel, I could probably start talking about how Coumadin prevents alien abduction and they probably wouldn't notice.

For each annoying person in the general public you deal with at Wags, there are 5 know-it-all nurses you will have to deal with in the hospital. You get a lunch break, which is cool. But at most places, that just means that you have stay an extra half hour. You can pretend like your job is more prestigious, but it isn't really. At least in retail you are the boss of all around you. In hospital, you are a little bitch that gets ignored dozens of times a day. You are, by far, the lowest man on the totem pole. The physicians and nurses boss pharmacy around like a runt stepbrother. They represent the purse and the biggest source of essential manpower. If either of them wants something the pharmacy doesn't, or vice-versa...they get their way, not you. The 8 or so pharmacists hanging out in the basement don't even show up on the radar of the CEOs. At least with retail pharmacy, you are the show. You are why they are there. In hospitals, you are treated more like an annoyance that they employ because the government makes them.

There are some good things about hospital. That whole "you get to use what you learn" thing. Though doing kinetics and staring at antimicrobial sensitivities gets pretty old, fast. The variety is what makes it interesting. Which is why I have no idea how specialists can stand their jobs. I'd get bored from the monotony. The occasions when physicians run out of ideas and begrudgingly have to admit that they need your help is incredibly amusing. They will call you from a phone in the corner of the floor so the nurses don't know they asked you for help. You can hear the pain in their voices and egos over the phone. No lie, one time a cardiologist asked me about drugs from hiccups...expecting it to be some tough question i'd have to look up...but being as though I'm, I dunno... a drug expert...without batting an eyebrow, I say Thorazine 25 q8. I swear to God...the physician on the other end of the phone lets off this nervous laugh and says, "Ah, yes, very good. I was testing you." WTF is that? Hospitals are like a microkingdom of bizarre little fiefdoms. If you can flourish in that environment, more power to you.

Of course, I'm pretty sure I worked in the most ass backwards hospital on the planet, so maybe my experiences aren't the standard.

Now if you stay with it and get a gig like Z where you go around telling people how to work efficiently as a consultant, I'd imagine that it becomes a pretty cool job.

...

But, hey, if you hate retail that much, maybe something new will help you. There is always mail order. Or LTC. Or nuclear.
Click to expand...

I think my irony meter had a meltdown.
 
Maybe in the past it was the money. Now people end up in retail just because other jobs are much harder to find, and they don't want to move to rural Kansas.
 
I think if you truly want to get into academia, you can get there. Research ambulatory care residencies, not the standard ones that are all hospital. After all, you've been taking care of an ambulatory population, right? Then you will have the credential for academia, and as one of the other posters noted, lots of new schools mean lots of new positions. Some of the residencies will also have a teaching component if they have a nearby college of pharmacy- I had quite a few residents who guest lectured at my pharmacy school.

You can do this, but you need to research programs carefully and have a really compelling description of why you want to make this major change (in other words, something besides retail sucks).

Good luck!
 
Thanks for your insight WVU! I know what you mean when you talk about all those fighting personalities down in that basement. I really want to start thinking about my long term career and I dont think I want to spend 20 years in the basement. I mean it is a step up but long term. This does not sound ideal.
 
BuffaloPills said:
Be thankful you have a job to complain about.

I think WVU said it best a while ago, bottom line is "everyone has to work, and pharmacy ain't bad".

If your stuck doing retail and hate it after pharmacy school, that's your own fault.
Click to expand...

You are right about it being my own fault. Where I am in life is a summation of all of my life's choices. I made a mistake by choosing retail, this I know for sure. I just have to work really hard to get myself out of the hole that I dug myself into. I am grateful to have a job but long term, I want more than just a job. I went into pharmacy to begin a career for myself. I think this is what Ive been searching for the whole time. I viable career.
 
Have you considered a Ph.D.? With a Pharm.D. you could find some schools where you might be able to get it in 3-4 years. Financially you will be taking a big hit for 3-4 years, but tuition would be paid at most good schools, you will have a small stipend and can try getting a few retail shifts here and there on weekends.

Long term this would open up tremendous opportunities in academia, government and industry. If you are not interested in spending long hours in the lab and are not interested on the formulations or pharmacology side, maybe a Ph.D. in pharmacoeconomics, pharmacy administration or even in a management school might be something to consider. There are some really fantastic opportunites both in industry and academia for PhDs in pharmacoeconomics.

A 3-4 year sacrifice to get to a job that can make you happy for 30 years might not be a bad investment.

My 2 cents.
 
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HappyPharmacist said:
Have you considered a Ph.D.? With a Pharm.D. you could find some schools where you might be able to get it in 3-4 years. Financially you will be taking a big hit for 3-4 years, but tuition would be paid at most good schools, you will have a small stipend and can try getting a few retail shifts here and there on weekends.

Long term this would open up tremendous opportunities in academia, government and industry. If you are not interested in spending long hours in the lab and are not interested on the formulations or pharmacology side, maybe a Ph.D. in pharmacoeconomics, pharmacy administration or even in a management school might be something to consider. There are some really fantastic opportunites both in industry and academia for PhDs in pharmacoeconomics.

A 3-4 year sacrifice to get to a job that can make you happy for 30 years might not be a bad investment.

My 2 cents.
Click to expand...

Hi Happy Pharmacist,
This is actual something that has been on my mind. I was actually talking this over with my husband today. I think I am to look into this. Thank You!
 
If I were you, and who knows I might be singing the same tune in a few years, I would just go part-time if you don't need money. Take some me time and figure out what you want to do. One thing I've noticed on rotations is most pharmacists work to live, very few live to work. Retail pharmacy is perfect for the work to live idea, especially part-time. Good luck.
 
Its Z said:
ehh.. higher pay at retail is a myth.
Click to expand...
No it's true! I make an extra 19 cents/hr at my retail job!

Except I get call pay at my hospital job which negates, each pay period usually, that potential extra $380/year I could make in retail :laugh: And our dept is not in the basement.
 
BuffaloPills said:
If I were you, and who knows I might be singing the same tune in a few years, I would just go part-time if you don't need money. Take some me time and figure out what you want to do. One thing I've noticed on rotations is most pharmacists work to live, very few live to work. Retail pharmacy is perfect for the work to live idea, especially part-time. Good luck.
Click to expand...

I second this idea. Depending on what sector I go into... original plan was to work only part time. it's easy as hell to live well in a rural area on 60-70k a year or so.. 30 hours a week or so sounds pretty nice
 
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